Predictive Content Delivery

ABSTRACT

A system and method for predictive retrieval of content is described. Prior to selection and delivery of content to a mobile device by a personal computer, content is predictively retrieved from storage at the computing device. By predictively retrieving content, the content is available for immediate computing device to mobile device transfer.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application is related to U.S. patent application Ser. No.12/002,300 filed Dec. 13, 2007 and entitled “Content Delivery to aMobile Device from a Content Service,” the disclosure of which isincorporated herein by reference.

BACKGROUND

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention generally relates to wireless mobile devices. Morespecifically, the present invention relates to searching for contentstored at a remote location via a mobile device and efficientlydelivering desired content to the mobile device from that remotelocation.

2. Description of Related Art

Mobile devices are becoming all inclusive computing devices. Mobiledevices are no longer limited to operation solely as a mobile phone andeven as a personal digital assistant (“PDA”). With increased processingand battery power and improved display and interface functions, mobiledevices are now expected to serve as a ‘laptop on the go.’ Mobiledevices are expected to provide not only telephony and/or PDA functionsbut near-instant access to multimedia and other on-demand content.

Notwithstanding the technological advances in mobile devices, they arenot without their limitations. Mobile devices tend to have lessprocessing power, less memory, and more bandwidth constraints ascompared to a desktop or laptop computer. Memory constraints may besatisfied by using the mobile device as a client communicatively coupledto a server, which may be nothing more than a home computer with greaterstorage capacity. While offloading of data solves mobile device memoryissues, the shifting of storage responsibilities gives rise to otherissues including those related to bandwidth, processing, and on-demandaccess to such content.

For example, a user may store all of their personal photos at a desktopcomputer having been configured with a remote access application. Thisremote access application may allow for access and control of thedesktop computing device via a mobile device. The user of the mobiledevice is then required to search through dozens if not hundreds ofphotographs at the computing device. While such search activities may betaken for granted when sitting in front of a laptop, attempting tonavigate various levels of files may prove difficult on a device with alimited user interface.

Retrieving content from the server/home computing device may provesimilarly difficult and/or laborious. A home computer possesses apowerful central processor (or processors) that allow for desiredcontent to be readily accessed, retrieved, and viewed. That samecontent, when transported to a mobile device, must be identified at thehome computer via the mobile device, prepared for transport over anintermediate communications medium (or media), received by the mobiledevice, stored at the mobile device, retrieved for viewing, andultimately rendered or executed by the mobile device.

Some files are very large such as music files or high qualityphotographs. These files will consume a great deal of bandwidth.Similarly, a desktop computer tends to be configured with any number ofmedia execution applications to allow for seamless access and renderingof content. Some applications may not be present on a mobile device forany number of reasons, including processing power and memoryconstraints.

As such, there is a need in the art for ease of access to content storedat a central storage device and that may be accessed by a mobile devicehaving more limited computational and/or display abilities than thatcentral computing device.

SUMMARY OF THE CLAIMED INVENTION

A method for predictive content retrieval is recited. A search query isreceived at a computing device storing content. The search query isgenerated at a mobile device. In response to the search query, searchresults are provided. The search results are provided to the mobiledevice by the computing device storing content. Content is retrievedfrom storage at the computing device followed by receipt of a userrequest at the computing device storing content. The user requestidentifies content previously identified in the search results. Contentis delivered to the mobile device, the delivered content beingresponsive to the user request and retrieved from storage prior to theuser request identifying the content.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 depicts an exemplary system for implementing search requestsinitiated by a mobile device.

FIG. 2 depicts an exemplary method for performing predictive contentsearches for the delivery of content to a mobile device.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1 depicts an exemplary system 100 for implementing search requestsinitiated by a mobile device. System 100 of FIG. 1 includes mobiledevice 110 communicatively coupled a data store (personal computer 130)via network 120. Personal computer 130 includes a connector application140 and content 180 as will be further described herein. Additionalcomponents may be introduced to system 100 such as billing applicationservers or third-party application servers. The computing devicesreferenced in FIG. 1 are inclusive of the necessary processing devicesand memory to allow for storage and execution of the variousapplications described herein.

Network 120 is inclusive of any variety of communications networksincluding geographically dispersed telecommunications networks such as aWide Area Network (WAN) or the Internet, intermediate networksrestricted to a metropolitan area such as a Metropolitan Area Network(MAN), and interconnected workstations within a relatively smallgeographic area such as a Local Area Network (LAN). Network 140 may behomogeneous or heterogeneous with respect to any particularcommunications medium (e.g., wireless or landline) and may overlap withor be shared by various service providers. Various hardware components(e.g., base stations, routers, and so forth) may be implemented innetwork 120.

Mobile device 110 is inclusive of any portable device used for mobilecommunications. Examples of a mobile device 110 include a PDA andInternet-enabled cellular phones or Smart Phone. Mobile device 110 iscapable of network connectivity such that it may exchange informationwith other computing devices over network 120.

Mobile device 110 may include any number of customized applications(e.g., media players or certain applications that may be required tointeract to connector application 140). Mobile device 110 may likewiseinclude one or more generalized software applications such as webbrowsers and electronic-mail applications that allow for or facilitatedata exchanges. Mobile device 110 may include a ‘search’ application toallow a user to search for content 180 at data store (personal computer130). The ‘search’ application may be a client-side user-interfaceapplication related to connector application 140.

Data store (personal computer 130) is a computing device on the network120 capable of processing search requests generated by the mobile device110. Data store (personal computer 130) may translate a search requestoriginated in a format native to mobile device 110 into a formatcomprehensible by data store (personal computer 130). Data store(personal computer 130) may be further configured to identify a sub-setof data from search results generated in response to the aforementionedsearch request and that correspond to a search constraint related to amobile device profile, network service provider policy, or user profile.The aforementioned functionalities may be embodied in a software moduleor engine executable at the data store (personal computer 130). Datastore (personal computer 130) may further include executableapplications for interacting with connector application 140.

Data store is not limited to a personal computer. Data store may be astorage server managed by an enterprise or content service. For thepurpose of the present discussion, data store will be exemplified as apersonal computer 130. Content server 120 may also be capable ofexecuting searches of content sources 150 for content and thatcorrespond to a search request generated by mobile device 110.

Personal computer 130 includes content 180. Content 180 is inclusive ofany and all types of content that may be stored in an electronic storagemedium. For example, content 180 may be photographs or videos. Content180 may also be audio files. Content 180 may also be more traditional‘office’ documents such as PowerPoint™ presentations, spreadsheets, andword processing documents. Content 180 may be stored in anyorganizational hierarchy (e.g., an ordered file system such as ‘Music,’‘Genre,’ ‘Artist,’ ‘Album,’ ‘Track Name’) including the lack of any suchhierarchy (e.g., all files randomly saved to a ‘desktop’).

Personal computer 130 includes a connector application 140 that isexecutable by a processor. Connector application 140 facilitatesinteraction with a mobile device 110 associated with or otherwise havingaccess to the personal computer 130. Connector application 140 may, inthis regard, be responsible for managing access permissions and/orassisting in the negotiation of a session between the personal computer130 and mobile device 110.

The connector application 140 of FIG. 1 includes a number of subsidiaryapplications: profile manager 145, access history manager 150,prediction engine 155, Quality of Service (QOS) engine 160, andreformatting engine 165. Connector application may operate inconjunction with data store 170 to store and retrieve data, includingcontent 180 and profile 190 and access history 195. Data store 170 isinclusive of any storage medium known in the art and that may beutilized by a general purpose computer (such as personal computer 130)or even more specialized computing devices such as network servers.Subsidiary applications may be an integrated part of the connectorapplication 140 or independent applications or modules linked toconnector application 140.

Execution of the profile manager 145 allows for the connectorapplication to access user profile data 190 as may be stored in datastore 170. A profile may be unique to personal computer 130 (i.e., noone else uses the computer) or may be determined through any number ofindicia provided by or derived from mobile device 110. For example,various unique identifiers may be associated with the mobile device 110including an IP address, a mobile identification number (MIN), orelectronic identification number (EIN). A personal identification number(PIN) and subscriber identity module (SIM) card combination may also beused. Other information may be stored on the SIM card and used as anidentifier of the mobile device 110 as that device concerns a userprofile. Traditional user names and/or passwords as may be entered atthe mobile device 110 or that may be provided in a token may also beused. A telephone number of the mobile device 110 may likewise be used.

User profile data 190 may indicate user preferences for particular typesof content. A user profile may indicate that the corresponding userprefers a particular genre of music or a particular artist. The profilemay indicate a preference for particular pictures. The user profile mayalso indicate capabilities of a mobile device associated with the user(e.g., applications on the mobile device or other hardwarespecifications). A user may manually update the profile to indicatemobile device properties or certain data provided may be gleaned duringthe normal course of operation (e.g., requests for WMV files mayindicate the ability for the device to execute WMV files and/or the lackof an error message in response confirms the same).

When the user associated with a particular profile logs in or beginsaccessing the personal computer 130 via the connection application 140,the profile manager 145 loads the corresponding profile data 190 fromdata store 170. Based on information in the profile data 190, theconnection application 140 may begin pre-fetching certain content 180that corresponds to the requirements and/or limitations of that profile190. For example, if the profile data 190 for a user indicates that themobile device may only execute WMV files, then all non-WMV video filesmay be excluded from search or other processing procedures. Further, theprofile may indicate certain ‘favorites’ such as particular photos oraudio files. The connection application 140 may queue those favoritefiles from content 180 such that they are available for on-demanddelivery to the user.

Execution of the access history manager 150 tracks the history ofcontent requested by a user. History manager 150 may operate in afashion similar to a ‘history’ file in a web browser. Access historydata 195 tracked by the history manager 150 may be stored in data store170. Access history data 195 may be associated with a user profile bythe connection application 140 in order to pre-load content 180 forimmediate access.

Execution of the prediction engine 155 implements certain intelligencein the connection application 140 in order to identify non-explicittrends. A user may consistently listen to a series of music files notbecause the user is particular to those individual songs but the artistthat performs them. The prediction engine 155 may identify the fact thatonly files of a certain format or bit rate are searched and retrieved bythe user. Prediction engine 155 may utilize data and/or metadata fromvarious sources in order to derive certain trends. The prediction engine155 may then predict that content that might next be requested prior tothe user actually requesting the content. Predictions may be based on asample set from a single session or a series of sessions. Predictionsmay expire over time or be renewed if a prediction proves to be accurateon a regular basis. Predictions may be associated with a user profile190.

Prediction engine 155 may also identify content based on a distributioncurve such as the location of a file in a file structure. A filestructure may have four levels. The second, third, and fourth levels area sub-level of the first level. The third and fourth levels are asub-level of the second level, which is a sub-level for first level. Thefourth level is a sub-level of the third level, which is a sub-level ofthe second level, which is a sub-level of the first level. Variouspieces of content may be stored in folders at each of the levels.Content in a higher level may be deemed more likely to be accessed thanfiles in a lower level as those files take longer and are more difficultto access through a traditional file structure.

Prediction engine 155 may likewise identify those content files thathave been more recently accessed. A content file saved to storage versusa content file saved some time ago may likewise indicate content morelikely to be retrieved. File folders in the aforementioned file systemthat have been more recently accessed may likewise indicate content morelikely to be retrieved.

Quality of Service (QOS) engine 160 examines conditions in a networkand/or performance issues at the personal computer 130 and/or mobiledevice 110 with respect to early loading of particular content,exclusion of searches or loading for certain content, or aiding theprediction engine 155 with respect to determining what content should orshould not be loaded. For example, if bandwidth quality is extremelypoor, certain high bandwidth content may be excluded from searches.Alternatively, if the prediction engine 155 determines that the userwill request that certain high bandwidth content notwithstanding thepoor network quality, it may allow for the content to start beingstreamed prior to an actual request such that the content is alreadypartially stored on the mobile device when the user requests the same.The QOS engine 160 may determine that the content may be altered as tobetter address the particularities of the network environment as may beaccomplished through the execution of the reformatting engine 165. TheQOS engine 160 may also determine that processor performance is sluggishon the mobile device or personal computer in response to certainperformance metrics that may be periodically generated and/or requested.

Reformatting engine 165 may be executed as to reformat content 180 inthe data store 170. The reformatting engine 165 may decode, encode,transcode, and/or resample content 180 in data store 170. Thereformatting engine 165 may initiate reformatting of content in order tobring the content within the limitations of a network condition asidentified by QOS engine 160 or to comply with the particularities of auser profile 190. For example, a mobile device 110 may not support ACCformat while supporting the MP3 format. The reformatting engine 165, inresponse to this indication as identified in a user profile or fromdevice feedback, may reformat content identified as being desired by theuser through prediction engine 155, access history 195, or an explicitindication in the user profile.

The reformatting engine 165 may reformat an MPEG-2 encoded video file toa 3GP encoded video file by copying the MPEG-2 encoded video file andsaving the copied video file as a 3GP encoded video file followingtranscodings of the same. In a further example, the reformatting engine165 may reformat an AVI encoded video file having a resolution of 720 by480 pixels to an AVI encoded video file having a resolution of 360 by240 pixels. In a third example, the reformatting engine 165 may reformatan MPEG-4 encoded video file having a frame rate of approximately 30frames per second (fps) to an MPEG-4 encoded video file having a framerate of approximately 15 fps. The reformatting engine 165, in a stillfurther example, may reformat an MP3 encoded audio file having a bitrate of 192 kilobits per second (kbps) to an MP3 encoded audio filehaving a bit rate of 128 kbps.

Content reformatting may be a factor dependent conversion related to thenetwork service provider constraint or the capabilities of mobile device110. Examples of such factors are available storage space, auser-selectable preference, supported codecs, bit rates, sampling rates,sample resolutions, or video frame rates. Other factors warrantingconversion also include memory size, free available memory, screen size,and a screen resolution of the mobile device 110.

Search requests may be initiated by the mobile device 110. Searchrequests may identify desired content such as artists, titles, genres,or series. Search requests generated by the user of mobile device 110may generally correspond to search requests as may be input to anycommercial search engine as is known in the art. The search requestgenerated by the mobile device 110 is then sent to the personal computer130. The personal computer 130 returns results to the mobile device 110.

In anticipation of certain content being selected for retrieval inresponse to the search request, the personal computer 130 may pre-fetchcontent and/or format content such that the content is immediatelyavailable for transfer to the mobile device 110 upon selection by theuser. As a result, content may be more quickly transferred to the mobiledevice 110. These determinations may be made by execution of one or moreof the aforementioned managers or engines at the connector application140 including the prediction engine 155.

Portions of content identified in the search request may be transferredby the personal computer 130 prior to the content actually beingselected for delivery (e.g., the first ten seconds of content). Thus,while a user listens to the first ten seconds of content, the remainderof a particular content selection may be transferred to the user.Because the first ten seconds are already present on the mobile device110, playback may begin immediately notwithstanding the ongoing transferof the remaining portions of content. As such, content playback isinstant notwithstanding the remote storage of the original content fileat the personal computer 130.

In some embodiments, the aforementioned managers or engines at connectorapplication 140 including the prediction engine 155 may be a part of thecontent search process. If content cannot be delivered because ofbandwidth conditions and/or played at the mobile device 110 because ofdevice restrictions (e.g., format or device conditions), then there isno point in identifying the file to the user for potential selectionwhen the content cannot be played back. Use of connector application 140to filter search results as suggested above may also occur in thecontext of content deliver, which would also involve the variousmanagers or engines at the connector application 140. The connectorapplication 140 may have dual usage in such an embodiment (search andpredictive fetching).

FIG. 2 depicts an exemplary method 200 for performing content searchesinitiated by a mobile device. As noted in the context of FIG. 1, all ofthe content available at a content source and that falls within a usergenerated search request may not be useful or accessible to the mobiledevice user. In order to provide useful search results (i.e., searchresults that correspond to content actually accessible to the user), thesearch results need to be processed to correspond to any number ofsearch constraints. Identifying content that is or that would violateone of the aforementioned search constraints (i.e., user preferences,device capabilities, network service provider constraints) is notuseful. Further, providing this content (and allowing a user to selectthe same for delivery) may result in operational difficulties at mobiledevice 110 (e.g., application failures) or incur unwanted costs on theuser (e.g., penalties for exceeding network bandwidth allocations). Thisnon-useful content may be removed from the search results provided tothe user of the mobile device 110.

In step 210, a search query is received at the personal computer 130 orother content storage source. Queries are generated at mobile device 110with respect to identifying what content is available at the personalcomputer 130. Queries may include artists, user, song title, or otherinformation that may be useful with respect to locating and retrievingcontent. Login or access credentials may need to be provided to thepersonal computer 130 as a prerequisite with respect to performing asearch or accessing any content at the personal computer 130.

In step 220, the personal computer 130 provides results that areresponsive to the query generated at the mobile device 110. The searchresults may be inclusive of all content at the personal computer 130 andthat is responsive to the search query. The search results mayalternatively be inclusive of all content at the personal computer 130but that further meet a network or device restriction. For example, thesearch results may be responsive to the query but only inclusive ofthose content files that are capable of being transmitted over thenetwork 120 or executable by the mobile device 110.

Following delivery of the search results in step 220, the personalcomputer 130 may commence with predictive content retrieval in step 230.By predictively retrieving the content for delivery to the mobile device110 prior to the content being requested, the content may moreimmediately be delivered to the mobile device 110 by personal computer130. Predictive content retrieval may involve any of the predictivemethodologies discussed in the context of FIG. 1. Predictive contentretrieval may also take place in the context of content reformatting.

In step 240, a request for a particular piece of content is received bythe personal computer 130 from mobile device 110. This request forcontent is generated and delivered to the personal computer 130following delivery of search results in step 220. Content is thendelivered to the mobile device 110 by the personal computer 130 in step250. In some embodiments, portions of content may be preemptivelydelivered to the mobile device 110 to even further expedite contentdelivery.

Additional steps may be implemented with respect to the method 200 ofFIG. 2. Steps may take place in the order reflected by FIG. 2,concurrent with other steps, or in another order as may be derived byone skilled in the art. The aforementioned method may be executed by aprocessor at a computing device. The computing device may execute thismethod through the processing of a computer program embodied in acomputer-readable storage medium. The storage medium is inclusive ofmedia such as a CD, memory, floppy disk, flash memory, and hard drive.

While the present invention has been described in connection with aseries of preferred embodiments, these descriptions are not intended tolimit the scope of the invention to the particular forms set forthherein. For example, any number of the functionalities described hereinmay be distributed to one or more computing devices or offloaded to orcombined with other devices performing other primary functionalities. Tothe contrary, the present descriptions are intended to cover suchalternatives, modifications, and equivalents as may be included withinthe spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claimsand otherwise appreciated by one of ordinary skill in the art.

1. A method for predictive content retrieval, the method comprising: receiving a search query at a computing device storing content, the search query generated at a mobile device; providing search results responsive to the search query, the search results provided to the mobile device by the computing device storing content; retrieving content from storage at the computing device; receiving a user request at the computing device storing content, the user request identifying content identified in the search results; and delivering content to the mobile device, the delivered content being responsive to the user request and retrieved from storage prior to the user request identifying the content.
 2. The method of claim 1, further comprising identifying content that is responsive to the search query and that complies with a search constraint that is separate from the search query, wherein only the identified content is subsequently provided to the mobile device as a part of the search results.
 3. The method of claim 2, wherein the search constraint includes a preference of a user associated with the requesting mobile device.
 4. The method of claim 2, wherein the search constraint includes a capability of the requesting mobile device.
 5. The method of claim 2, wherein the search constraint includes a constraint imposed by a network service provider.
 6. The method of claim 2, wherein the content includes visual media.
 7. The method of claim 2, wherein the content includes audio media.
 8. The method of claim 2, wherein the content includes multimedia.
 9. The method of claim 2, wherein the content includes documents.
 10. The method of claim 2, wherein the content is organized in a hierarchy.
 11. The method of claim 2, wherein the content is maintained outside a formal hierarchy.
 12. The method of claim 2, wherein content is retrieved from storage prior to the user request identifying the content through execution of a prediction engine to identify a trend corresponding to the content provided as a part of the search results.
 13. The method of claim 12, wherein the trend includes an artist.
 14. The method of claim 12, wherein the trend includes a file format or bit rate.
 15. The method of claim 12, wherein the prediction engine uses metadata to identify a trend.
 16. The method of claim 12, wherein the trend is identified from a single connectivity session.
 17. The method of claim 12, wherein the trend is identified from a series of connectivity sessions.
 18. The method of claim 12, wherein the trend corresponds to an accuracy rate of prior predictions.
 19. The method of claim 12, wherein the trend corresponds to a user profile.
 20. The method of claim 12, wherein the trend includes an expiration date. 